


The Long Road

by Bumblie_Bee



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt Sherlock, Hurt/Comfort, Injured Sherlock, Injury Recovery, Not a quick fix, Permanent Injury, Rosie Learns to walk, Sherlock is jealous, Stressed John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-28
Updated: 2017-03-28
Packaged: 2018-10-12 02:06:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10479675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bumblie_Bee/pseuds/Bumblie_Bee
Summary: "That he was cold was the first thing Sherlock noticed when he woke. The second was that he was uncomfortable, laying on something solid which dug into his ribs and spine and pressed into his skull. The third was pain. His head throbbed in time with his heart and a sharp ache radiated from his back. The fourth was that he had no idea where he was."Sherlock lays alone on the rocks and waits for John to save him. Later he learns that even after rescue, his John might be a lot further away than he had anticipated.





	

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is my first new fanfiction in many years, but the plot bunny just sort of grabbed me and ran away and this was born. It is definitely the longest single chaptered fic I have ever written, and it really should be split into at least two chapters, but I couldn't find anywhere good to break it. I hope you Enjoy it.
> 
> Constructive Criticism appreciated!

The long road

That he was cold was the first think Sherlock noticed when he woke. The second was that he was uncomfortable, laying on something solid which dug into his ribs and spine and pressed into his skull. The third was pain. His head throbbed in time with his heart and a sharp ache radiated from his back. The fourth was that he had no idea where he was. 

He opened his eyes, at first seeing only blackness but then noticing the tiny white pin pricks of light above him. Mycroft had shown him the stars when he was little, had taught him some of the constellations too. Of them all, Orion had been his favourite, large in the sky with his bow and arrow, an ancient Greek huntsman with a muddled beginning and an even more muddled end. 

Sherlock shook the thoughts from his wandering brain; they wouldn’t help him now. But there were stars, and therefore it was night and he was outside. But why was he outside, and why was his head pounding so? And more importantly, where was John?

He shifted, trying to sit up, but a clawing agony from somewhere deep inside his middle stopped him in his tracks and he whimpered involuntarily, his eyes tightly shut and his head swimming. He lay still, forcing eyes open and fixing them on the stars as he waited for the pain to abate. 

He watched as Orion looked down from the blackness, his bow now obscured by a passing cloud. 

***

Sherlock had no idea how long he lay there waiting for the pain to fade, but when he opened his eyes again the stars were patchy and Orion had gone. He didn’t remember him leaving. He didn’t remember shutting his eyes either. His head was pounding more than it had been before and the pain in his back was worse too, sharp and deep and almost unbearable. 

He didn’t try to get up again; it would hurt more if he moved. He vaguely considered his mobile, but finding that would also require moving and he didn’t think he could stand that pain again. Not that there was a problem with just lying there; John would come and find him. John always did. 

***

He was wet the second, or maybe third, time he woke and he could feel tiny rivers running down the rocks beneath him. The stars above his head were gone, at some point covered by clouds which had since broken. John wasn’t there either, not yet anyway. His back was almost burning with pain and he vaguely realised that breathing seemed to hurt too. His aching head felt stuffy and slow, like he was thinking through the sticky, thick syrup John liked on his pancakes. 

The rain pattered down around him, the sound was peaceful, relaxing. He didn’t want to go back to sleep but his muddled brain didn’t want to stay awake. He didn’t try too hard to fight it because the pain wasn’t there when he slept and because John would wake him when he got there anyway.

***

There was light behind his eyelids when he woke again and the gentle pitter patter of the rain had stopped. He wasn’t cold any more, and the pain in his back had faded almost to nothing. He was almost comfortable, and so very tired. He wanted to open his eyes but the lids were heavy and he didn’t have the energy. Instead he lay there and waited, barely caring when the light behind his eyelids faded back to black. 

***

It was the sound of voices that woke him next. He couldn’t tell what they were saying but he knew none of them were John’s. They sounded far away and he tried to yell but he didn’t think his muddled brain could remember how. Not that it mattered; John would come and save him.

And then John is there, he can hear him calling his name, and he wants so badly to reply but there’s a tightness in his chest that he hadn’t realised was there and he can barely suck in the air he needs to breath let alone shout. Someone is shouting though. And then there is plastic on his face and a pain in his side and suddenly he can breathe in oxygen he hadn’t realised he couldn’t. He coughs and John mumbles something and he thinks there’s a hand running through his hair. 

The hand vanishes and then there’s shouting again, and Sherlock doesn’t understand the words but he can hear the urgency in the tone. And there are hands, on his head and chest and legs, and suddenly he’s moving, rolling onto his side. The pain in his back flares, agony radiating up and down his legs and he thinks he might have screamed, and then there is another pain in his arm, barely noticeable compared to the fire burning inside him. And then everything is fading, the voices and the tightness in his chest and the agony in his back, and then even the light behind his eyelids fade and nothingness engulfs him again. 

***

The world is moving and so noisy he can barely hear himself think when he next opens his eyes. There’s still plastic on his face and he reaches up to remove it but a blue hand reaches out to catch his arm. He tries to fight it but the blue hand is stronger than his. And then a face leans into his line of sight and it isn’t John, why isn’t it John? He tries to ask where John is but the man says something he doesn’t understand and then there’s a sudden coolness in his arm and slowly the world around him darkens.

***

He knows he is in A&E the next time he wakes. It’s noisy and white and smells of disinfectant. There are people on all sides of him, and a chant of 3,2,1, roll, and then he’s on his side again. It doesn’t hurt like it did before but the feeling of the cannula in his hand and the buzzing of drugs in his bloodstream explain it. A man starts talking and the voice is familiar but it isn’t John’s. He realises it’s the man from the ambulance, the one with blue gloves, and he seems to be explaining his condition to the doctors so he listens, and he tries so hard to focus on the voice.

It’s difficult though, his brain can’t seem to concentrate and the words muddle and time skips and in the end, he can only gather that he has a head injury, which was obvious really, and an unstable and displaced fracture and that they’re sending him to CT. He hears the click on the brakes on the bed being removed and then he’s moving. He feels exhausted; it takes so much energy to focus his muddled brain. The movement fades as he falls asleep again. 

***

When he next wakes, the world is bright behind his eyelids and a fluorescent light buzzes above his head. There’s a beeping which his sluggish brain decides is a heart monitor and he knows he’s still in the hospital. He can’t hear any breathing so John can’t be there, but that’s okay, he’s safe now; John found him. The pain from before is gone so he tries to sit but his body doesn’t obey and something digs into his neck so he stops. He realises it’s a neck brace and decides he must have broken his spine; it would explain the awful pain. He vaguely wonders if he’s paralysed because he tried to move and nothing happened but before he can find the energy to experiment further he closes his eyes and the drugs draw him back to sleep. 

***

John is there the next time he wakes; Sherlock can smell the slight lemon scent of his shampoo over the cleanliness of the hospital. He can feel his hand too, resting gently on top of his own. John’s asleep, judging by the rate of his breathing. He’s tired himself and something inside him is beginning to hurt again so he follows John’s lead and allows the drugs to pull him back under. 

***

“Sherlock? Can you hear me? Can you open your eyes?”

It’s John’s voice. Sherlock would know that voice anywhere. He wants to reply, to tell John he can hear him, but his throat is dry and sore and he doesn’t quite remember how to talk. He tries though, and to his surprise he hears his own voice. It doesn’t sound quite right, ‘John’ becoming little more than the last letter, but he counts it as a success. John seems to hear it too, asking him again to open his eyes.

It’s so much effort, but finally Sherlock forces his leaden eyelids to flutter open. 

He’s flat on his back and so John is standing over him. The fluorescent light is glowing behind his head like a halo. He looks tired, his eyes are dark and his chin is grey from stubble, and Sherlock briefly wonders how long he has been unconscious. But John looks happy too, his grin spreading across is whole face and he visibly sags with relief when Sherlock tries again to say his name. 

“How long?” he tries to ask, and his voice doesn’t sound right at all, too weak and croaky, but John understands. He learns it’s been six days since he was brought to the hospital, by air ambulance it turns out which would explain all the noise. He’d been in an induced coma for three of them to try and reduce the damage caused by the swelling in his brain. He tries to take in the information but his head is still awfully muddled and it takes so much effort to focus on what John is saying. 

John notices, of course he does, he’s a doctor, and tells him to sleep, and Sherlock agrees and falls asleep happy because John is there as he always knew he would be, even if he did take his time. 

***

Waking is easier the next time. He’s still flat on his back but the neck brace is gone. He turns his head towards the sound of John’s breathing and grimaces as pain flares in his neck. There’s a gentle snap as John’s book closes and then a hand grasps his, the thumb gently rubbing circles into the back of his hand. 

“Careful, you’re going to be a bit sore for a while.” His voice is gentle and Sherlock grunts in reply, waiting for the pain to subside. He hears the click of a button being pressed beside him and then he feels the fuzziness in his head increase. Morphine, he realises and he finds he doesn’t mind because it does calm the burning in his neck and the pain that had slowly been growing somewhere deep inside him.

He opens his eyes to find John is sitting beside him this time; he can just about see him out of the corner of his eyes. He stands, moving into Sherlock’s line of sight, and brings a cup of water off the table and holds the straw gently to Sherlock’s lips, lifting his head with his other hand. Sherlock takes a tiny sip, barely enough to wet his parched throat. 

“Prognosis?” he asks. The word is slurred, the syllables blending together and it seems to take a second for John to understand. He looks surprised at the question. 

“You should make a full recovery, given time,” he says, and then his face hardens. “You almost died, you know? I couldn’t…” He trails off and bites his lip, then turns out of Sherlock’s restricted line of sight. Sherlock tries to follow but the muscles in his neck complain. John doesn’t leave the room; he stands just out of view as he collects himself. 

He looks calmer when he comes back into Sherlock’s line of sight and tells him to sleep. Sherlock obeys and closes his eyes, not because he is tired but because John has told him to. He realises just how tired his once his eyes are closed, since when has simply being awake been so exhausting? 

***

He’s next awoken by someone calling his name. It isn’t John, John isn’t there, it seems, but it is a doctor. He asks Sherlock all the expected questions. He knows his name and age and address, and he can have a reasonable guess at the date, he gets the month and year right so there’s no worries there. He knows he is in the hospital too, which one he hasn’t worked out yet but the doctor seems happy enough with his answer and tells him. 

But then he’s asked what he was he was doing up on the cliff in the middle of the night and how he came to be at the bottom of it, and Sherlock hasn’t got an answer for that. 

Next he has to touch the doctor’s finger as it hovers in front of him and squeeze his hands, and it all requires so much more effort than it should. And then the doctor is touching his feet and asking him to push against his hand, and despite the pain and exhaustion he’s pleased to realise that he can move; he’s just been too tired all along. 

The doctor seems pleased too, and then asks him again how he fell off a cliff in the middle of the night and Sherlock still doesn’t know the answer and he says so. He later learns from John that they think he might be suicidal. He points out to John that if he were to off himself, he wouldn’t use such an unpredictable and messy method. John smiles, half amused, half sad, and Sherlock doesn’t really understand why. 

***

He sleeps a lot over the next few days. John says it’s because of the head injury, and the fact he’s recovering from surgery. He just accepts what John says is true, half because he trusts John, and half because his brain is too fuzzy for him to stay awake long enough to question it. It takes him a few more days to stay awake and focused enough to ask John what exactly is wrong with him. 

John is ready with the answer when he asks, handing over a folder which he quickly recognises as his medical file. It’s the printed version Mycroft keeps, and he vaguely wonders how it got there. John offers to read the relevant pages to him, but he shakes his aching head. He wants to read it himself, he knows he will just fall asleep again otherwise, John’s voice does that to him sometimes. 

The top of his bed has been lifted by now and he is held up on it by a mountain of pillows. He sits with the folder propped up on his legs and slowly reads his way through the pages. It takes him much longer than it should do because the drugs still being pumped into his system make him drowsy and his pounding head sometimes forces him to rest back into the pillows and close his eyes against the light. He might have napped during those rests but he doesn’t know; time doesn’t pass very regularly any more. 

The folder explains a lot though. It turned out that the unstable and displaced fracture was of his pelvis. Fractures, really. Multiple. His right femur had been fractured too, they had later discovered, along with two vertebrae, four ribs, one of which had punctured his lung, and the baby finger on his left hand. This was on top of the head injury, a bruised kidney, a substantial amount of muscle damage in his neck, and hypothermia. 

There were details of the surgery too, about the placement of the metal plates and wires and screws which had been used to string together his shattered pelvis and pin his femur and ribs. He reads the notes on the number of times his heart had stopped, and the number of units of blood they had pumped into his system in hope of keeping the thing beating until they could repair his damaged vessels. 

Afterwards John points out that it’s a minor miracle that, despite the obvious trauma of his fall, all his major organs had remained intact and that the hyperthermia had been kind enough to slow the internal bleeding enough for him to still be alive when the paramedics had arrived.

He doesn’t know all that much about medicine, but even he knows he really shouldn’t be alive. John’s reaction makes sense now. 

He’s exhausted by the time he makes it through the folder. John looks tired too. He hasn’t moved since Sherlock started reading, only speaking to explain the words he didn’t understand, his voice so carefully controlled it was almost monotone. He has questions to ask John, about recovery and how long he must stay in this bed, but he’s tired and finds himself sleeping instead. 

He wakes briefly, later in the evening, but John is gone. He sleeps some more. 

***

Physiotherapy starts the next day. He doesn’t have to get out of bed but the exercises still leave him shaky and tired and in pain. They come twice a day and he sleeps in between. His life becomes routine; eat, sleep, physio, sleep, repeat. The food isn’t nice, but he knows he needs to eat for them to release him so he does when he can. 

It takes him a while to notice the cards sitting on the bedside table. He still can’t turn his head very much and his back is held stiff by a brace and so they’re normally out of his vision range. There’s a fair few of them there, some from friends, some from clients. He thinks they’re pointless because they wouldn’t actually help him get well soon even if he could see them, but they stay where John put them because it was John who put them there.

John still comes to see him every day but he doesn’t stay there like he used to. He learns it’s because he’s spending more time looking after Rosie now that he’s out of danger. He had almost forgotten about her but he doesn’t say so to John as he knows it will upset him. 

He gets other visitors too. He remembers Mrs Hudson being there once, she stroked his head like his mother did when he was young and ill and he fell asleep again. Greg comes too sometimes. He brings cold cases and he thinks he’s being helpful but Sherlock’s fuzzy brain still just wants to sleep so the folders sit untouched on the bedside table. 

He should be bored, but he finds he isn’t. Time passes in stops and starts and he finds he’s lost track of the days. John smiles sympathetically and says it’s just because he’s spending so long asleep. Sherlock wonders how much the head injury plays a part in it. 

***

He’s propped up in bed with a tray of bland food sat on a wheeled table over his legs when John next appears. He has Rosie with him this time. She’s bigger than he remembered, and when John puts her little feet on the ground she stumbles forwards, her chubby hands holding tight to John’s fingers. She takes a few more steps and then lets go, collapsing on to her padded behind. John says she’ll get there soon and scoops her off the floor and sits down with her on his knees. Sherlock thinks he looks proud. 

He doesn’t say much as he finishes his lunch but John makes up for it, chattering away about his day and Rosie and their friends. John looks happier than normal and Sherlock says so. John smiles again and says that he’s happy because he’s with his two favourite people in the world. John stays longer that day. Sherlock wonders if it’s because Rosie is there too.

He’s still there when the physiotherapist arrives. Both Sherlock and Rosie have napped by this point, Sherlock still propped up on his pillows and Rosie in her father’s arms.

They decide today is the day they want to get him out of bed and Sherlock wonders whether John knew in advance and that’s the reason he stayed. The process is long and tiring and by the end he can barely breathe from the pain, but he does it, and for the first time in he doesn’t know how long, he stands on his feet. His legs are wobbly and weak and barely support the little weight he is allowed to put on them but it’s counted as a success. 

He sleeps after that, and John is gone again by the time they wake him for dinner. 

***

Slowly, time begins to regain its structure and soon he can count the days as they pass. The physio sessions help in that respect too; in the morning he exercises on his bed, in the afternoon they get him to stand. One day the sessions increase to standing both times and this screws with his system a little but at least it’s progress. The day after that, or maybe it’s two, they bring him a walking aid and he takes his tentative first steps by himself. He would find it humiliating had he not been so focused on not passing out from the pain. They tell him not to push himself too hard, but the more he does the faster he can recover. 

John is there sometimes during his physio, often with Rosie but occasionally without. They’re both there the day he finds the problem with pushing himself too hard. He’s standing using crutches for the first time and the ache it sends through his abused pelvis is sickening. They ask him if he thinks he can walk a few steps and he tells them he can because he wants to be better and he wants to go home. 

They stand too close and he snaps, telling them he is fine, and they do back off a little. In retrospect, he shouldn’t have lied, because one moment he is upright, trying to ignore the pain in his middle and the shake in his legs, and the next he is falling. The physiotherapists are fast, but he told them to back off and so gravity is faster. His right hip hits the floor and stars burst in his eyes. 

He knows he is crying as he lays on the floor, the tears are hot and sticky on his face, but the pain in his middle is burning and angry and he doesn’t think he could stop crying even if he tried. In the distance, he thinks he can hear Rosie crying too. John is beside him in an instant, telling him to open his eyes and focus on him. The keep him still on the floor until a doctor arrives with a scoop and a team and they cart him off to x-ray. 

Turns out he hasn’t broken anything inside him further or displaced any of the healing bones. John sags with relief when they are told, and Sherlock, who is flat on his back again, is finally allowed upright. John helps him to sit up and props him there with his pillows. He looks angry. Sherlock points out he’s fine so John doesn’t need to be upset, but apparently, that’s the wrong thing to say. 

“Do you know how many times your heart stopped?” he says, and he sounds angry too. Sherlock knows the answer; it’s thee, but he doesn’t say so because that isn’t what John is asking. Rosie picks up on his tone too and whines from the floor where she is stacking different sized plastic rings on a pole in the wrong order. John turns away and scoops her into his arms. She’s still got the blue ring held in her chubby hand and promptly puts it in her mouth. 

“Do you know how lucky you are that you didn’t bleed to death before anyone found you, that you’re able to walk at all? You broke your spine, Sherlock, you were so close to being paralysed.” John’s tone is hard and his voice is raised and Rosie struggles in his arms. She looks about to cry. 

Sherlock doesn’t point out that it would have been unlikely for the spinal fractures to have paralysed him; they were stable and John knows that too. He doesn’t point out that he thought he was paralysed when he had first woken up either. 

“I can’t take this anymore, Sherlock,” he says. His voice is quieter now. He sounds sad and lost and Sherlock knows this isn’t just about the fall today. John flings the strap of Rosie’s bag over his shoulder and heads for the door. Sherlock thinks he ought to call John back and apologise but he says nothing because he doesn’t know what he should be saying sorry for.

***

John doesn’t appear for almost a week following the fall. Sherlock knows he hasn’t visited whilst he’s been napping either as Rosie’s rings stay where he has neatly stacked them on the bedside table and the blue ring, the second one from the bottom, is still missing. Time stays straight in his head now and because the fuzziness is fading and he’s sleeping less, boredom has set in. He’s read most of the files Lestrade has left him, he’s even solved a couple. He tells Lestrade the solutions when he visits and the man smiles and thanks him but Sherlock thinks he can see sadness in the other man’s eyes. His head isn’t quite right yet and he knows that, but it’s getting there, it’s progress. 

Physically he is doing better too. His physio sessions had resumed the second days after his fall, and with the help of crutches he is now able to walk a lap of the ward, and even if it does leave him tired and hurting it’s progress too. The doctor comes in the seventh day after his fall and tells him he is ready to go home, and that he can be released the next day if there will be someone at home to help him. John might still be at home but he might have moved elsewhere by now, Sherlock hasn’t had any contact with him since he left a week ago. He knows he can get Mycroft to send a car, and Mrs Hudson would be willing to make him tea and fuss and call him her poor boy, but he knows that isn’t what they mean. He tells the doctor that someone will be there to stay with him anyway because he wants to go home. The doctor doesn’t look convinced. 

***

When Sherlock wakes the next morning, John is back sitting beside his bed. He looks guilty and apologises for leaving him alone for so long, and Sherlock says it was fine and John nods despite both of them knowing it isn’t true. The doctor comes in shortly later, looking relieved by John’s presence, and tell them the list of things he can and can’t do by himself. John nods seriously, taking in every word. Sherlock barely listens. 

He’s taken by wheelchair to John’s car and he doesn’t complain because he doubts he would have made it there by himself anyway. It takes John two trips to collect all the belongings that had been left in the room over the three and a half weeks he had been there and carry it out to the car along with the crutches and the two bags of medication he has been prescribed. Sherlock sleeps on the way home. The journey isn’t too long, but he still tires easily and it’s been a long morning. 

He hadn’t really considered the stairs to 221B Baker Street until he is standing at the bottom of them. The climb is slow and his broken insides hurt from the strain and his arms and ribs ache from having to take so much of his weight but John is never more than a step behind, ready to catch him if he falls. Eventually they make it. He is shaking from the effort and John has to help him to the sofa. 

Three weeks pass, and his body heals and strengthens. He stops having to wear the back brace, and he no longer needs the crutches to cover the short distance between the bathroom and his bed. He still sleeps a lot; the effort of tasks he would have once called simple tire him out and the drugs John won’t let him stop make him drowsy. They go for a walk most mornings now, and the stairs are slowly becoming less of an effort. 

He's remembered how he came to end up laying at the bottom of a cliff too, and turns out it was due to a lead on a case which he had followed. John hadn’t been with him, possibly with Rosie but he doesn’t know as the details aren’t all that clear. His hunch had been correct, but turns out following a trio of crowbar-happy murderers alone isn’t always a good idea. One of the trio swings a crowbar at his head and it all gets a bit fuzzy after that, but he vaguely remembers being in the boot of a car. Lestrade is pleased when he is told because he gets to arrest some murderers. John is less pleased because it confirmed that he had been an idiot and ran off alone again.

Then one day when John is with Harry and Mrs Hudson has taken Rosie to visit Mrs Turner next door the doorbell chimes. He ignores it at first but it rings again, insistent on being answered. He grimaces and pushes himself off the sofa and stands there, looking for his crutches, but the doorbell rings again and so he gives up and makes his way slowly to the stairs. 

He gets half way down before his legs start to shake and then he hears the clink of the letterbox as a ‘we’ve missed you’ delivery note is pushed through. Typical, he thinks, as he turns to head back up the stairs. He doesn’t really know what happened after that, whether his shaking legs gave way or his foot slipped on the carpet he isn’t sure, but suddenly he isn’t upright anymore and the hallway floor is a lot closer than it was a moment before. He doesn’t remember landing.

***

“Sherlock?”

John calls to him and he forces his eyes open to find himself laying somewhere between his back and his side at the bottom of the stairs. His insides hurt again. John is kneeling beside him, his hands are on Sherlock’s head, probing gently for a bump. 

“I’m fine,” he mumbles and bats John’s hands away. He tries to push himself upright but John places a hand on each shoulder, holding him still. 

“No, don’t move.” Sherlock stills, looking up at John, his eyes dart over Sherlock’s form. He opens his mouth, about to tell John he’s fine but finds himself interrupted almost before he starts. 

“You are not fine, I can see you’re in pain. I know you don’t want to have to go back to the hospital, but if something is wrong it’s going to be a lot better for you in the long run to admit it now.” He pauses and Sherlock finally relaxes under his hands. His expression is tight from the pain. 

“Back, pelvis, think I bumped my head,” he says eventually. John nods grimly, but seems relieved that at least he now has a serious answer.

“Do I need to call an ambulance?” he asks, and Sherlock thinks about the question. The pain is worse than anything he’s felt for weeks now, but nothing hurts in the same way it had when he had first woken alone and laying at the bottom of a cliff. He flexes his legs experimentally. Eventually he shakes his head. 

“It’s not the same pain,” he says and John seems to accept that. Slowly, John helps him sit up, and then pulls him to his feet. 

It takes them almost as long as the first time he had returned home to make it up to the flat, even with John taking most of his weight. John supports him as he shuffles to the sofa and helps him rearrange the pillows until he is comfortable. It takes a lot of pillows as his back is sore and his still healing pelvis is throbbing. 

“You need to be careful, Sherlock,” says John. He doesn’t just sound worried any more. “I know you’re bored and you want to be up and running but you’re not ready for that yet, you have to give yourself time to heal.” He walks away and Sherlock thinks he might be leaving again, but then he hears a tap in the kitchen and then John returns holding a glass of water and the stronger painkillers that he is yet to give into taking. He swallows them without argument. 

***

John takes him back to the hospital the next day when the pain hasn’t faded as much as he would like and Sherlock is again unable to stand unaided. He doesn’t put up much of a fuss; he doesn’t see the point. 

The x-rays reveal a slight crack in one of his damaged vertebrae and, although it’s not unstable, they recommend he wears the back brace again to help with the pain. The new fracture running into one of the screws on the right side of his pelvis is more of a concern. It was the side most damaged and the bone is slower at growing into the metal fixings than they had anticipated. It isn’t displaced though, and they don’t want to put him through further hospitalisation, so they send him home again with strict instructions to keep the weight on his right leg to a minimum and to return if the pain doesn’t improve in a few days. 

John settles him back onto the sofa when they return home. He’s angry, Sherlock can tell in his movements and eyes and the tone in which he says “it’s always two steps forward, one step back with you, isn’t it?” as he leaves the room. It isn’t a hard deduction anyway; John is often angry these days. He doesn’t see John again until dinner time. He returns to the flat with Rosie perched on his hip and a bag of takeaway food in the other. It’s Chinese, judging by the smell. 

John eats his up the table whist simultaneously feeding Rosie in her high chair. Sherlock eats his on the sofa. John takes the plates through when they’re finished and does the washing up whilst Rosie plays on her rug on the floor. She has a puzzle today; a football-sized plastic cube with shaped holes in one side and a collection of matching shape shaped bricks. It doesn’t seem all the interesting, or complicated, but she’s currently entertaining herself by trying to shove the star shaped brick through the square shaped hole. 

John takes Rosie up to bed shortly afterwards, only coming back down to help Sherlock to the bathroom and then to his bed. They barely speak for three days after that. 

***

“Let’s play deductions,” Sherlock says from where he sits on the sofa one evening. It’s the fourth day since the stair incident and John is reading in his chair. He looks up from his book, his head is tilted to the side in question. He doesn’t say anything so Sherlock takes that as an agreement. 

“You took Rosie to see Harry today,” he says, because that seems a fairly civil starting place. John confirms his deduction and then turns away again. He seems to prefer silence between them now days.

“Harry’s still off the drink.” This one is a guess, but he knows John left Rosie there, so it must be at least partially true.

“She’s doing well,” John agrees. His gaze stays fixed on his book and when he doesn’t seem willing to offer any further information Sherlock continues. 

“You didn’t stay at Harry’s though; you went to the pub.” There’s a pause and then John hums in agreement. Sherlock can’t see much of his face from where he is sitting, but the tiny side-to-side movements John’s head normally makes as he reads across the pages of his books have stopped. He seems oddly uncomfortable. 

“You’ve been to the pub every day since I fell down the stairs.” Sherlock says, and John’s breathing pauses and then he swallows. He looks guilty and Sherlock realises he’s been miscalculating John’s absences for a while now. 

“You’ve been to the pub most days since I had the accident?” Sherlock asks, but it’s half way between a question and a statement because John’s absences suddenly make a lot of sense. He had known John had been visiting the pub, but between the drugs clouding his mind and his long afternoon naps, he hadn’t realised quite how regular his trips had been. 

“Quick deduction, Sherlock.” John replies sharply and closes his book with a snap. He gets up and walks towards the door. His posture is tense and his hands are clenched into fists.

“But you haven’t been going there to drink,” Sherlock says and John pauses in the doorway. “Not excessively anyway, you wouldn’t trust yourself with Rosie if you were drunk, and you don’t smell of alcohol when you return, so why go to the pub if not to drink?” Even Sherlock himself isn’t sure if he is expecting an answer or not. 

“I just can’t talk about this at the moment.” John says forcefully and walks from the room. 

“I don’t understand why you’re angry at me,” Sherlock says despite John no longer being in the room, and it’s possibly one of the most open things his has said since the accident. It comes out louder than he was intending and even he can hear the hurt in his voice. There’s a pause and then John reappears in the doorway and for the first time since the conversation began Sherlock can see his face. The emotion in his expression is clear.

“I’m not angry,” John’s reply is instant but both his tone and expression make it clear he is lying. 

“You’ve been angry at me since I woke up in the hospital.” Sherlock says. It’s the first time either of them has mentioned the tension between them in the months since he first woke up in the hospital. John holds his gaze for a second, and then his tense posture drops and rubs a hand over his head

“I know,” he sighs. He looks frustrated and Sherlock still doesn’t understand. 

“But why?” he asks, and John opens his mouth as if to say something, but then he closes it again. He shakes his head slightly and walks to the window and stands there looking out of the glass at the street-lit street below. 

“I nearly lost myself when you died,” he says eventually, and Sherlock can hear the barely audible tremor in his voice. “And Mary saved me. Then when you returned she shot you and I nearly lost you again. And then when Mary died I pushed you away because she was dead and I’d lost my wife and Rosie had lost her mother and it was entirely your fault.” His voice nearly breaks as he says the last few words and Sherlock can see his hands are balled into fists. 

“And then the drugs, Sherlock, the f…” he stops himself before he swears, he’s been trying to stop for Rosie’s sake. One hand reaches up to his head, fingers entwining tightly in his hair. Sherlock thinks he might be pulling. He breathes deeply, and when he next speaks he sounds more controlled. 

“But I try to put it behind me because it’s okay now, I’ve got you and Rosie you’re all I need. 

“And then one night you don’t come home. And I have no idea where you are and you don’t answer the phone but I try not to worry because you’re a grown man, Sherlock, but I can’t help but worry because I cannot cope with losing you again!” John breaks off and stands there breathing heavily. He turns back from the window and looks at Sherlock. His voice is quieter when he speaks next.

“And when you’re not back by morning I phone Mycroft and I’m left here for seven hours waiting for him to call to say you had been found. I spent seven hours fearing you were dead, do you know how that feels, Sherlock?” Sherlock doesn’t, but the tremor in John’s voice informs him it isn’t pleasant.

“You died, Sherlock. Three times, before I even got there, do you know the effect that can have on the brain? I sat beside your bed for days, because even when they lightened the sedation you still didn’t wake. They started talking about a coma, Sherlock, about the chance of brain damage if you did wake.” John’s voice breaks and he trails off. His breathing is shaky and he bites at his lip. Sherlock wonders if he is trying not to cry. 

“I’m okay though,” Sherlock says quietly after a moments silence, “No brain damage.” John nods and draws in a breath and focuses his eyes on the ceiling. He exhales shakily but his voice doesn’t tremble when he speaks again.

“You’re reckless with your life,” he says. The words are blunt and forceful but he sounds a lot more composed than Sherlock was expecting. “You run into danger without a thought for the consequences and that used to be okay, but you have to realise that they don’t just effect you anymore. You have people who love you and care for you, and you have to think of their feelings before you galivant off into danger by yourself. 

“I can’t stay here and wait around for you to get yourself killed, Sherlock.” John’s voice is quiet. “I can’t sit in every night, wondering where you are and waiting for it to be the day that I get the call telling me they’ve found your body. I can’t cope with the thought of you dying alone in a hole somewhere and I can’t sit at your bedside for days on end again, wondering if you’re ever going to wake up and if you’re going to be you if you do, I just can’t do it.” There’s a pause, and then John continues, his voice barely louder than a whisper.

“I can’t watch you die again, Sherlock. It would kill me too.” John’s voice hitches and his expression crumples and then there’s a silent tear making its way down his cheek. He wipes at it furiously. Sherlock can’t remember the last time he saw John cry. John looks almost angry at himself for his show of emotion and he looks away, blinking rapidly to clear the water from his eyes. 

“I suppose this might be the occasion in which one offers a hug,” Sherlock says quietly when John doesn’t say anything further. He isn’t sure if it is a serious offer or not himself, but John takes it as a joke and laughs wetly so he smiles too. And then he sighs shakily and crosses the room to the sofa and all but collapses onto the empty seat. He leans back against the cushion and looks up at the ceiling. 

Sherlock doesn’t know what to say, but after all the talking John has done he really ought to say something in response. John doesn’t seem to have anything else to say either. Instead they sit in silence but the tension that had accompanied the silence for the past few months is, while maybe not gone, at least more bearable than it had been.

Downstairs Mrs Hudson’s clock chimes ten. Any other night he would have gone to bed by now; he hasn’t stayed up this late since before the accident and he’s exhausted. John should probably sleep too; Sherlock can tell he has a headache from the tightness in his eyes and because emotion does that to him. 

“I didn’t intend to cry,” John says a few minutes later, his head still rests back against the cushion. “Although, I didn’t intend to say all that either…” he trails off and rubs at his temple. 

“It was unexpected,” Sherlock admits, “and mildly concerning,” he stops, and when he speaks again his voice is quieter. “It did get the message across, though.”

“Really?” John sounds surprised and he lifts his head back off the sofa to look round. Sherlock nods once.

“I intend to keep all future activities as mundane and low-risk as possible,” he says it lightly but there is a truthfulness to the words and he knows it is that which makes John smile. 

“You couldn’t do mundane if your life depended on it,” John replies, but his voice is gentle. 

***

Slowly, life returns to their warped version of normal. The tension in the flat that Sherlock had just accepted abates and John and Rosie start to spend more time in the living room. The days are more bearable now; the pain has lessened and he plays with Rosie and watches bad telly with John. He starts to play the violin again, and he has to do it sitting down and his broken finger twinges but the expression on John’s face is worth the pain. He can’t play for long, though, and decides his aching baby finger to be the most irritating injury of the lot. Rosie begins to walk by herself. Sherlock hasn’t managed that since before he attempted the stairs and sulks because he has been beaten by a baby. John laughs. 

The back brace comes off, and stays off this time, and eventually John agrees that he is ready for light casework again. He’s still on the crutches so he knows he won’t be chasing criminals any time soon, but it’s progress. It’s another three days before Lestrade calls, but after that they’re off. They leave slower than they used to because John has to dress and feed Rosie first and then get her settled with Mrs Hudson downstairs and because Sherlock still isn’t as fast as he used to be. 

They take a taxi to the murder scene because Sherlock has managed to flag one down before John has time to point out he owns a car now. Sherlock is out of the cab first despite his crutches and John is left to pay. He would complain but he finds he hasn’t the heart. 

Lestrade meets them at the gate and ushers them inside the door of the rather ordinary looking house he had been waiting outside. The inside is less ordinary looking due to the blood splattered walls and pair of corpses laying neatly on the living room carpet. Sherlock grins. 

“Ah, freak’s back!” says Donovan from where she appears in the kitchen doorway and her voice is as harsh as normal but John’s sure he can see her smile as she turns away. Anderson is there too, and insults fly in both directions, and then Sherlock solves the murders, because it’s a double murder despite it looking like a murder/suicide, and calls them all idiots as he leaves. John doesn’t think he has seen him this animated for months. 

Sherlock has a follow-up appointment at the hospital the next day. He spends most of the morning being poked and prodded and laying inside scanners and by the time they get to see the consultant he’s worn out from the activity and aching from the tests and just wants to go home. 

The news isn’t all good either. Sherlock’s spine has healed well and his lung and kidney function has returned to normal. His pelvis is slowly healing too, the left side is almost fully recovered, but the amount of bone regrowth on right side is less than ideal and there’s talk of a bone graft. They agree against it for the time being but decide it might be a necessary in the future. He knows he isn’t going to be walking unaided for a while and wonders just how much of the problem was caused by his tumble down the stairs. 

They leave with another appointment booked in for two weeks’ time to check for further bone growth and to discuss the recommended surgery if there is none. The atmosphere in the car feels heavy as they leave the hospital. John is unusually quiet, his eyes fixed almost unseeingly on the road. He’s likely disappointed about the results of the appointment and no doubt worrying whether there was anything he could have done to help because that is the sort of thing John worries about. Sherlock rests his head against the window because he is tired and hurting and sleep sounds nice right now.

Later that day he’s lying on the sofa. He’s quiet and he knows John has put it down to tiredness and pain and the fuzziness in his head that comes with the stronger painkillers, but it’s down to disappointed too, because although he had known that there hadn’t been a lot of improvement in his hip, there had still been hope that it was repairing. 

He finds he’s suddenly missing the thrill of the chases he used to go on and the excitement of the more dangerous cases with Lestrade because until today he had always thought he would be back to them sooner or later. Now he knows there are doubts of him ever walking far unaided again. Being injured wasn’t quite so bad when he thought he was recovering.

***  
For Sherlock, the two weeks wait for the next hospital appointment feels like a lifetime. The news from the consultant isn’t as they had hoped for either; there has been no further bone growth over the past two weeks and the bone graft is strongly recommended if he wants the best chance at a full recovery. The surgeon asks if they need time to discuss it but Sherlock agrees to have the surgery before John even has a chance to open his mouth. 

Somehow his case is high priority and, despite the busyness of the NHS, Sherlock’s surgery is scheduled for midday in three days’ time. The three days seem to drag even slower than the two weeks before them and by the third day the atmosphere in the flat is unbearably tense because, despite Sherlock saying that the bone graft is just a small medical procedure and that his body is just transport, they both understand the weight riding on the outcome of the surgery. 

The sky is dark and cloudy when they leave the flat for the hospital and it’s raining by the time they have parked the car. They both get soaked walking to the entrance of the hospital because Sherlock doesn’t walk as fast as he used to and because John refuses to run on ahead. When they’re inside John shakes the water from his coat and says something about pathetic fallacy. Sherlock scoffs and rolls his eyes because the idea that the weather could have any effect on the outcome of his surgery is ridiculous. 

***

John isn’t there when Sherlock first wakes from his surgery. He doesn’t open his eyes to check, but he can tell he is in the recovery room from the beeping of the monitors and the oxygen mask he is wearing and he knows John wouldn’t be in there with him. His pelvis is sore despite the fuzziness of the drugs he can feel in his system and the oxygen mask is uncomfortable against his skin. He tries to remove it but someone, probably a nurse, replaces it and before he can find the energy to push it off for a second time he falls asleep again. 

Sherlock knows from the lack of breathing beside him that John isn’t there the next time he wakes either. The beeping of the monitors from before has stopped and when he opens his eyes he is pleased to find himself back in his room. The oxygen mask has been removed but the pain in his pelvis is worse despite the drugs he can feel in his system and his throat is raw and dry from the tube the surgeons had stuck down it to keep him breathing whilst he was unconscious. 

He finds a remote beside his hand and raises the head of the bed until he is more upright because, although his pelvis throbs with the movement and the room spins sickeningly, it means he can reach the little plastic cup of water sat on the wheeled table beside his bed. He sips from the cup and the water soothes his throat, but between the general anaesthetic and whatever painkillers they have pumped into his system his coordination isn’t great, and the cup slips from his grip and the remaining water spills and soaks into his shirt. 

Sherlock drops his head back against the pillow and his expression crumbles. He isn’t sure if he’s more upset about the loss of his drink or the dampness of his gown but he finds he’s oddly emotional about the whole situation and a sound somewhere between a groan and a sob escapes his lips. He feels dizzy and nauseous and his pelvis is hurting almost unbearably and he finds himself wishing more than anything John was with him. 

But John’s not there, and that isn’t something he can change, so scolds himself for his drug-induced display of emotion and rolls his head into the pillow, hoping the anaesthetic will have worn off a little more by the time he finishes his nap. 

When Sherlock wakes again, his head feels clearer and the room around him doesn’t spin when he opens his eyes. This time John is in his room, reading in the chair beside his bed. He doesn’t seem to have realised Sherlock is awake; his eyes stay fixed on his book, moving from side to side as he reads. 

“John?” he croaks, and John finally looks up from the book. He seems surprised that Sherlock is awake, and then smiles and gets up to stand beside the bed, his book now held in one hand, a finger between the pages to mark his place. 

“Hello sleepyhead, how are you feeling?” he asks softly. Sherlock grunts in response because John is a doctor and so probably knows exactly how he feels and he doesn’t have the energy to waste on answering such a pointless question. 

“’m wet?” he says instead, and John looks momentarily confused before his expression changes to one of amusement when he realised what his friend has said. 

“Well, you did tip water all over yourself, so that’s only to be expected,” he says with a grin. Sherlock does vaguely remember dropping a cup of water, now that John has mentioned it, and he grunts in reply and glares as much as the drugs in his system are willing to allow. 

“You also slept on the call button for a bit,” John adds, “the nurse came by three times before she realised what had happened.” Sherlock frowns and looks up at his friend in confusion; he doesn’t remember being visited by any nurses at all. He finds he doesn’t like the failures in his mind palace brought about by the general anaesthetic. His expression must show more of his emotions than he had intended it to show because John sighs and smiles at him sympathetically. 

“Come on, let’s get you into something dry,” he says and puts his book down on the table, the pages split and the spine facing up towards the ceiling. Mycroft had always hated it when he had left the books he had borrowed like that, said it ruined the spines.

 

“I thought you were there,” Sherlock mumbles after he wakes from his next nap. He hadn’t really been intending to say it, but the pain and the drugs have made his head fuzzy and he isn’t really thinking straight. John glances up from his book, his expression curious. 

“Where?” John sounds confused and his eyebrows are furrowed and his head has tilted to the side.

“With the paramedics?” Sherlock says, and he asks it as a question despite already knowing the answer. John hadn’t come to find him on the rocks, he’s gathered that now, it’s just that John had seemed so real at the time, and he almost needs to confirm it. John’s eyes widen; he is clearly no longer confused about the topic of conversation.

“No, I wasn’t.” There’s a pause before John speaks again. “But you knew that already, so why ask?”

“Apparently, my mind was not in an adequate state to create reliable memories,” Sherlock says, and he had hoped John would leave it because he hadn’t really intended to start the conversation in the first place but John is looking at him, his head tilted to the side in question. 

“I thought I remembered you being there after the paramedics turned up, you were talking to me, but clearly I was mistaken,” he explains and John seems to consider what he has said for a few seconds and then he nods. 

“I’m surprised you remember any of that,” he says and Sherlock thinks he sounds curious. 

“I don’t remember much,” he says with a yawn as he rolls his head back into the pillow and closes his eyes. He had hoped John would think he was falling back asleep, but he clearly isn’t fooled as easily as Sherlock had hoped.

“What do you remember?” he asks, and Sherlock sighs and opens his eyes again. 

“I remember waking up, I was lying on the ground and it was cold and it hurt. I remember the stars, but then they went and it rained. I remember waiting.” He looks over at John; he seems surprised.

“For rescue?” John asks. He shrugs slightly and looks down at his hands, absent-mindedly picking at the tape covering his cannula with his other hand. 

“For you,” he replies, his voice barely more than a whisper because even with the drugs numbing his system, it feels so raw and personal to admit such a thing to John. John’s eyes widen and he sucks in a breath, but he nods in acceptance. He looks almost regretful and Sherlock is reminded of that day at the hospital when John had finally returned. He hadn’t meant to upset John. 

“You were there in the end though,” he adds after a pause, and he had intended it to comfort John, but when looks over the smile John gives him is sad. 

Sherlock spends the rest of the afternoon napping but by the evening the general anaesthetic has worn off enough that the room stays stationary when he sits and he no longer feels nauseous. He makes a vague attempt at eating the bland excuse for dinner that they bring him and afterwards he watches a repeat of an old detective drama on the telly and complains about the blindness and stupidity of the main characters. John sits in the chair beside his bed, reading the book he has brought and telling Sherlock to put something else on if he thinks the detective drama is so daft. It’s long after visiting hours have ended when Sherlock falls asleep and John finally leaves the hospital. 

The next day John is back at the hospital as soon as Rosie has been settled with Mrs Hudson and visiting hours had allowed. It isn’t long after he arrives that Sherlock’s surgeon comes to discuss the outcome of the procedure. He reports that the graft itself has been a success, and seems tentatively hopeful that it may increase the bone growth into the metal fixings previously implanted in the hip enough for Sherlock to be able to start putting weight on his leg again in a couple of months. An estimate for how long it will take him to be walking unaided isn’t given. 

Afterwards, John fetches a wheelchair from reception to take him home. Sherlock complains about the wheelchair because its unnecessary; he’s been unable to put weight in his right leg for months and the surgery hasn’t changed that, but apparently its hospital policy and John is annoyingly stubborn on the matter. Sherlock gives in because if he sits in the chair then at least it means he’s heading home. 

John has to help him up the stairs for the first time in weeks when they get back to Baker Street and he spends the evening laying on the sofa, his feet on John’s lap. He is hurting more than he has been for weeks and the strong painkillers they have given him make his thoughts hazy so he spends a lot of the evening dozing. John watches a comedian on the telly who makes jokes that Sherlock doesn’t really understand and a few times he is woken up by the laughter of the audience watching the show. Sometimes John is laughing too, and the odd shaking sensation of his laughter doesn’t help the pain in his broken pelvis, but it means John is happy so he finds he doesn’t really mind. 

***

The winter arrives early and bitterly that year, and although the winter months had never bothered him before, Sherlock finds he now dislikes them. The icy pavements are slippery beneath his crutches and he can feel the cold in the ache of his mending hip and the previously broken vertebrae that hadn’t bothered him for months. They still go for a walk most days despite the cold because he needs the exercise, and twice a week he has a physiotherapy session to try and increase the flexibility in his hips and improve his posture. 

Between the physiotherapy sessions and the cold, he finds his back and pelvis ache almost constantly. He tries to hide it because it’s been months since his fall and he just wants people to stop looking at him like he’s broken. Mrs Hudson now brings him tea and food without complaining about not being his housekeeper and he pretends not to notice the pitying looks Lestrade gives him when he thinks he isn’t looking on the rare occasions he is called to a crime scene. Even Mycroft doesn’t bother him anymore. John pretends not to notice he’s hurting but lights a fire in the grate most evenings in an attempt to drive the chill from their draughty flat. 

The winter also brings the follow up appointment for the bone graft surgery and for once Sherlock receives good news from the x-rays of his hip. Later that week, Sherlock stands and plays the violin for the first time in over six months. 

***

“Are you sure you don’t want something stronger?” John asks after Sherlock winces for the third time in as many minutes as he tries to make himself comfortable on the sofa. Sherlock grimaces and shakes his head. He hasn’t had any of the stronger painkillers for a couple of months and he plans to keep it that way. He’d stop taking painkillers altogether if John would let him. 

“It’s progress though, isn’t it, first case without crutches?” John says, looking up from the floor where he sits with Rosie. Despite being both exhausted and hurting, Sherlock hums in agreement. His progress has been slow, it’s been almost eleven months since he woke up confused and in pain on the rocks at the bottom of the cliff, but it is definitely progress. 

He isn’t going to be running over rooftops for a while and he knows that; his hip seems barely able to support his weight after a day of walking and the cold brings on more of an ache in his spine than he would like to admit. He knows it’s likely that he will never physically fully recover, that he will always be slower than he was before and that his hip is always going to hurt when it’s cold or damp and that it’s likely he will always walk with a limp. 

Sherlock has never been the sort of person to regret his choices, he just thinks it’s a little unfortunate that it took such a permanent injury for him to realise how important his transport actually was. 

Rosie squeals from where she sits on the floor, startling Sherlock from his thoughts. She is beginning to talk rather than babble now, currently her favourite words are ‘no’ and ‘car’ and she calls John ‘Dadda’ which is as expected for a child of her age. She has recently started calling Sherlock ‘Dock’ much to John’s amusement. Sherlock wonders at what age she will gain the ability to pronounce ‘Sherlock’ correctly. 

She yells again, louder this time, and hits the little wooden beater she is holding on the wooden floor beneath her. John apologises and asks her if he’s ignoring her. He picks up his own wooden beater and starts tapping out a tune Sherlock recognises but can’t name on the colourful xylophone placed on the floor beside him. He isn’t overly musically talented, Sherlock had been able to do better before he could talk, but he doesn’t mind because it’s John. Rosie is hitting her beater on the bars too and John doesn’t seem to care she’s ruining his tune. Sherlock finds he doesn’t mind that either. 

John finishes his song and Sherlock claps. It’s almost entirely sarcastic and John knows that and rolls his eyes but Rosie claps too, laughing with delight as her chubby hands collide. John laughs and lifts her into his arms to tickle her rounded tummy and Rosie squeals again. Despite the pain in his hip, Sherlock smiles, and it’s then he realises that although his road to recovery is going to be long and hard and he may never make it to the end, there are no two better people he could be limping along it with.

**Author's Note:**

> Reviews and constructive criticism are appreciated.


End file.
